Prince Rupert Set for Celebration

Prince Rupert, B.C. – It’s a special day today in Prince Rupert as the community marks the completion of the Fairview Terminal expansion project and marks the 10th anniversary of the Terminal.

The expansion, estimated to cost between $200 and $300 million dollars makes the Fairview container terminal, the second largest container terminal in Canada. It increases the Port’s capacity by more than 50%.”More importantly it adds a second berth so two container vessels can be worked at the facility at the same time” says Port CEO Don Krusel.

The new berth is equipped with three of the largest container handling cranes in the world says Krusel “Which will enable the Port of Prince Rupert to handle the largest container ships that are in existence today.”

The expansion completion is just one part of the celebration planned in Prince Rupert today says Krusel, “The other part is the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the initial opening of Fairview as a container terminal.” He says the Fairview terminal has been dramatically successful “It has really been a Cinderella story and the Fairview terminal is the glass slipper for this community.”

When the container port first opened, the longshore labour force numbered less than 80, today it’s over 900 and the expansion expects to see that number grow by another 200 at the terminal, and hundreds more in connected industries. But the terminal’s impact has not been limited to Prince Rupert says Krusel “It had an impact right across Northern British Columbia. By our surveys, 3,300 direct jobs have been created over the last ten years in Northern British Columbia, including Prince Rupert, but also including places like Prince George and Smithers.” He says another 2,000 indirect jobs have also been created.

And if those two milestones aren’t enough to spark a celebration, there is one more positive, the addition of a container stuffing facility “Grains are going to be railed from right across Western Canada to Prince Rupert” says Krusel “and these grains and specialty agriculture products will be stuffed into empty containers in Prince Rupert and that’s going to create another 40 jobs as well in Prince Rupert.”

Other activities at the port include the $475 million dollar Liquid propane export terminal being developed by Alta Gas on Ridley Island and the Port Authority’s $16 million dollar security and maintenance building.

Comments

Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2017 @ 8:00 AM by seamutt with a score of 0

Just think of all those mega ships plying our coast, the cargo, the huge amounts of fuel carried, the potential horror of it all.

sarc off.

Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2017 @ 8:17 AM by He spoke with a score of 0

Our economy was built on pushing envelopes. Our standard of living is based on our ability to get our resources to market. We can not survive on taking the round parts off of logs, any more. With out good paying jobs, and ability to tax the companies for removing the resources, we would not have our standard of living, which includes our health care and social safety nets.

Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2017 @ 9:12 AM by Palopu with a score of 0

If you look at Prince Rupert population you would see it has been in a free fall.

1996-16,714
2001-14,643
2006-12,815
2011-12,508
2016-12,220

So although there has been huge increase in container traffic/coal/etc through the Port of Prince Rupert it did not seem to increase the population.

On the other hand, one has to wonder what the population would be without these huge exporting terminals.

Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2017 @ 6:07 PM by LittleBirdie with a score of 0

What are you suggesting then? Let Long Beach, CA get all the business instead?

Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2017 @ 11:08 PM by seamutt with a score of 0